Greece Demands €297 Billion in WWII Reparations From Germany

Good luck with that.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog vs. the World Cup

Triumph strikes again.

A Matter of Perspective

Landmarks from different angles!

The Euro Crisis: "a shabby, demoralising slide into darkness"

Life imitates T.S. Eliot: here are a few thoughts on the slow slide into ruin when we're expecting instant apocalypse.  That doesn't mean the ruin is any real.

Quote of the Day: The Greek Disaster

From a BBC reporter:

This is happening in a European Union country - a place of unparalleled cultural richness, of beauty, of history. How has it come to this? 

You can read the theories, study the statistics and yet it still seems incomprehensible that a country can fall so far, so fast.

Nerd Journal: This May Never Happen Again, But for Now ...

SWEET, SWEET VINDICATION.  A few days ago, I was talking with a Nerd Lord about the eurozone.  He had been a huge proponent of the UK joining the euro, and I had been - as you all know - a big skeptic of the entire eurozone project from its inception and an opponent of the UK yoking itself to the euro.  I got used to people mocking my position.  But then ... Somewhere in the course of the conversation the august Nerd Lord talked about fed-up Finland wanting to dump the euro, the increasing frustration of Germans, the utter fecklessness of the Greeks, and then:

Was it an accident that last night was a blue moon?  Two events that are ever so exceedingly rare!  We're not going to get another blue moon for years.  I might not be acknowledged to be ultimately right in an unpopular position for years either.  But that's OK.

Addendum: Be sure to be gracious and humble in situations like this!  Don't indulge your initial impulse to pump your fist in the air, shriek "YES!" and take a victory lap around the building.  Smile a little sadly and say something like "I wish I weren't right and that we didn't have this horrible mess on our hands.  Oh, it's terrible, isn't it?"  The fact that you are now serving humble pie doesn't mean you should fling it in the other person's face, right?

Euro Notes: Who Thinks They're the EU's Hardest-Working?

Here's an absolutely hilarious link in the Economist.  I've posted the even more uproarious chart from the survey after the fold. Remember this?

Quote of the Day from Euroland: "The Greeks seem to have no understanding of the seriousness of their predicament."

Tragedy morphs into farce.  

Greek Euro Mess Nears Inevitable Conclusion

Here's the blurb:

The Greek euro tragedy is reaching its final act: it is clear that either this year or next, Greece is highly likely to default on its debt and leave the eurozone.

Bonus: the British newspaper choosing to slap a photo of Oedipus Rex on this news story. Meow!

Nerd Analysis: Niall Ferguson & Europe's Economic Mess

"Farce"?

Euro Notes: That Single Currency Is Doomed?

I had my doubts about this entire enterprise, because - as you recall - Milton Friedman predicted that the euro wouldn't survive its first recession.  Of course, perhaps the idea itself of forcing all those nations into a single currency was "an incredibly stupid idea in the first place."  In a nutshell, just look at Greece and Germany.

Euro Notes: $170 Billion Bailout for Greece

Will it prevent a Greek default?  Everyone hopes so.  Well, you can certainly hope for the best, but the other half of that advice is "but prepare for the worst."  I'm bringing the "train wrecks" tag out of retirement.

Read: "Lords of the Sea" and the Story of the World's First Dominant Navy

Before the Roman navy made the Mediterranean Sea their lake and before the British navy ruled the waves around the globe, the Athenian navy underpinned a maritime empire.  I'm checking out Lords of the Sea by archaeologist John R. Hale (Penguin, 2010).  Does it have anything at all to do with my own schoolwork?  Nope!  And I don't care.  Triremes are cool.  They're even cooler when some crazy history buffs and archaeologists re-create one and sail it around!

Greece: Circling the Drain?

The S&P expects Greece to default soon.

Euro Notes: Technical Difficulties ...

The trouble with rule by technocrats.  Money quote here:

... one irony here is that many of Greece and Italy’s current woes can be traced back to the original design flaws of the euro itself — which, of course, was dreamed up by unelected experts and policy wonks. Technocrats, even.

Well, DUH.  Meanwhile, the entire idea of unelected technocrats in power -- i.e., rule by unelected expert (or "expert") -- should give us all pause.  The key word is "unelected," boys and girls. More here.


UPDATE:  Commentary by Daniel Hannan:

Euro Notes: Greece and the Eurocrats

Oh, dear.   The slow-motion train wreck that is the Greek catastrophe in recent days has reached the point at which I am compelled to have "train wrecks" as an actual blog post category tag.

Self-evident metaphor.

Quirky Euro Files: Fun with Stereotypes

Hilarious, if you're not easily offended.

Euro Notes: Beware Greeks Bearing More Panic

There's a metaphor in here somewhere:

One senior investment banker is more blunt: "People are scared that the government doesn't know what the [expletive] it's doing." He tells a story about an acquaintance who took out €30,000, wrapped it in a bag and stashed it in his garage. "The bag had previously had some food inside," he says. "So it attracted rats, who ate the notes."

*facepalm*


UPDATE: Of course, you could always just blame Zeus and the other Greek gods for your economic woes.

Nerd Notes: Warrior Scholars of World War II

Meet Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) and some of his remarkable peers in this captivating obituary. I am utterly charmed.  Leigh Fermor, by the way, managed to kidnap a Nazi general on Crete and quote the Roman poet Horace in almost the same breath.  Hail and farewell, sir!  Ave atque vale!

Beware Greeks Bearing Economic Ruin

Well, the Greek economy is in tatters and threatening to ruin a whole lot of other people while it's on a roll.  Here are two thoughts: the role of rampant tax evasion and whether Greek political elites ruined the country.